Climate Grief: Grieving Environmental Loss in a Changing World | Weekly Dispatch

Climate grief is real. But what exactly are we grieving when the climate changes?

We often think of grief as something that follows the death of a person. But what happens when we lose familiar landscapes, ecosystems, seasons, species, communities, or a future we once imagined? In this End of Life Conversations Weekly Dispatch, we explore climate grief, eco-grief, environmental loss, and the emotional impact of a changing world.

Extreme heat, wildfires, dying plants, changing seasons, and damaged ecosystems can leave us feeling sadness, anxiety, helplessness, or even guilt. These reactions aren't necessarily signs that we're failing to cope. They may be natural responses to witnessing meaningful loss.

In this conversation, we explore what climate grief is, how to cope with climate grief, and how grief can become a pathway toward connection, compassion, and meaningful action.

We'll consider:

•  What is climate grief and eco-grief? 
•  Why does environmental loss create such powerful emotions? 
•  How do we cope with climate anxiety and grief? 
•  How can we acknowledge ecological loss without becoming overwhelmed? 
•  What can ordinary acts of care mean during extreme heat and environmental disruption? 
•  How can grief connect us rather than isolate us? 

Climate change isn't only an environmental story. It's also a story about life, death, loss, community, compassion, and what it means to care for a changing world.

If you've ever grieved something in the natural world that you couldn't quite put into words, this conversation is for you.

#ClimateGrief #ClimateChange #EcoGrief #GriefAndLoss #ClimateAnxiety

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to End of Life Conversations. This is our weekly dispatch. I'm Sam Lee Zemke here with dearly beloved uh Reverend Mother Ana Luisa Armandoris and Reverend Joaquil David Matthews.

SPEAKER_04 0:18

So sweet.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Yay. Happy to be back. It's been a busy summer. A lot going on. Yeah, I'm glad you're back.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

I know. I am too.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Missed your voice. Oh, and we have been sort of struggling to narrow down what we want to talk about this week. There's so much. Yeah. There's so much on our hearts and on our minds. Um and so we thought maybe we'd we'd dive into maybe the shallower end of the pool. Oh my god, which would be that's so funny. Climate change related deaths and loss. And uh yeah, so let's see, let's see where we can go and in the heaviness of this.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Also, this would also be a PSA for people. If you're living in a really hot space, take care of your elders, take care of kids, drink water, you know, try to find some shade. You know, it is a thing when our uh when our temperatures are really high. We are not used to it.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

So never yes, they are.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

So what was the number, Ana Luisa? You just you said you read?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yes. There was an article that I read over the weekend. It was like 16,000 additional deaths that happened this summer, I think in Spain or France. And it was attributable to the heat wave that has been playing the the continent.

SPEAKER_04 1:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

And people just are not ready or accustomed to it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

And it especially affects people who can't afford air conditioning. And you know, and and in India they're they're seeing temperatures that are unlivable beyond what human beings can live in. And again, there are very, very few people there who can afford to uh have an air conditioner. And I we're just we have a friend who is over here from India who does uh who works in an orphanage there, and he he was telling us that in the orphanage itself, they finally have somebody paid for them to have some air conditioning and part of it, but they have to bring all the kids into that part of the place when it gets up to 120 degrees, you know. And even then it's hard to say what cool enough to keep everybody safe. And then the kids sometimes are trying to go outside, and yeah, it's just it's really it's uh it's nothing short of horrific, you know. And it's and that we live in our little comfort bubble. Um it is something really I think is important for us to consider, think about, pray about, help in any way we can. Um yeah, so it's it's it's important, it's important for us to notice, I think.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah. It is important to notice, and also I think I'm about to doggy paddle into the deep end. You know. Um I I also noticed that um this administration just changed the rules for Texas so that Texas uh corporations don't have to pay for like the heat uh breaks for people, water, have water and a 10-minute like get out of the heat.

SPEAKER_04 3:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

And you know, yeah, so they've gone away with that because they said they cannot, like, you know, that's not good business practice to be taking care of people if it's too hot. And you know, we have our thoughts, we have our thoughts. And I, you know, I want to just point out that um whether or not we're in those situations working these jobs. I mean, you know, Amazon workers are struggling. Everybody's struggling. It's hot, it's very, very hot. Um, I appreciated I was traveling through it's this is a completely different reason, but I was at a gas station in California and the gas guy came outside and gave some firefighters all like some um electrolytes. And he said, he's like, hey, thank you for helping us out. Thank you for always being available for us. And I think that maybe that I I remember I was being struck by I was like, of course the firefighters, right? Because it's like very evident that they are stepping in the line of literal fire for us. And, you know, maybe something that we can consider are all the people around us who are working really hard to make our lives easier for all those continuously still spending money on Amazon to have it done, you know, brought to your doorstep this, you know, the very same day. Think about those folks because they, you know, leaving some water, a little electrolyte. Um, I have come out with like um, I had a favorite mailman years and years ago, and I brought out wet cloth for him one day because I was like, it's too hot. Uh so you know, this empathy, empathy for the our community at large who who struggles with this climate change.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah. Yeah. And and others are struggling. I and I think about the whole um chain of people who are the the immigrants who are picking the picking the fruit, you know, and and um who are suffering and who are suffering in so many ways right now, um being detained for no reason and and all that that we've talked about in the past. And and the, you know, I just was talking about before we came on here the horror horrors of the detention centers that now that a white woman got picked up, um we heard about from a white person who got bailed out, right? Um but so many people, including many, many, many children, are just being treated in horrific ways that just doesn't match what we think of when we think of our country, at least my what I think of, you know.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

And and none of those places have climate control, you know. None of the big concrete boxes. Yeah. Right. And so that that becomes another hotbed for those things. And and then um re what you were saying, Ana Luisa, about the firefighters reminded me also that it's not just heat, you know, we're also like smoke. The smoke from all of these fires was a huge conversation this summer. Yeah. I mean, we were at a camp and talking about you know how much could was it safe for the kids to play outside with the amount of smoke in the air. And we've talked before about you know a number of days where um you know kill your kids on the farm. Yeah. Had to work in in full respirators. And and I encountered somebody the other day who was saying, you know, any any uh early death due to health uh health complications from now on is climate related.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Wow. Yeah, I think that's I I would have to agree with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

So many people now, I mean, there's so many different manifestations of the smoke poison. And um when we were at that camp, I remember sitting outside one of the days that it was relatively less smoky, but still it was smoky, you know, and you could you couldn't see the mountains a little ways away. They were all covered in smoke. And just thinking about somebody said this the other day about how it would be make sense for us to sit in circle and ritualize all of the creatures and plants and things that have that are in that smoke that have burned up because of climate change and and that we could sit with that smoke and re and realize what we're what we're actually experiencing and we're experiencing the the ashes of living things that died for our sins. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Truly. Yeah, so you know, this is the end of life conversations we dispatched. And you know, we want to normalize conversations around death and dying, mostly in you know, humans. That's a this is our MO. And yet, you know, we do, I I do want to bring forth like you know, the trees that are struggling. I I walk every day and I see this trees that have had a hard time this summer. Yeah. And, you know, the plants that just never were able to kind of pop up because it was just way too dry. You know, here we're in um a drought, um, what is it called? Like standard right now. So we're not supposed to water any of our lawns except you know, minimal amount. And I am noticing who has very green grasses these days and who doesn't. And I'm like, I see you. Um and you know, it there is there is loss of I I you know, and some level I understand these people's, you know, reluctance to follow the rules around watering because it is an incredibly like visceral reaction to see a dead lawn, a dead, you know, you're it just it's right smack in front of you. There's a bunch of people in my community who just there's just everything's dried up. And, you know, to talk about it, to see it, to to grieve the loss, you know, everybody, you know, us old timers like it used to not be this hot. Yeah, it didn't, and it's changing, and you know, this is a really it's a very sad and toxic time for all of us.

SPEAKER_04 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Um, but yeah, so death and dying, it's it's happening and uh coming to a community near you.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Right, yeah. Yeah, I think anybody who hasn't had to deal with smoke is probably a rare person nowadays. Um and and you know, I think too that's true. Um, yeah, I mean, it's everywhere. And and that just and like you said, it doesn't be in an older old timer, uh this was never a thing. You know, it's only in the last, I don't know, five, six years that it's become the the new normal for summer. And especially where I live on the coast, you know, there's a lot of there's marine wear air and there's a lot of uh good winds usually, and it's rare, but it's still every single summer now for the last five or six years, there's been smoke levels that were dangerous here in this in the Seattle area, you know. And uh and then I know you know when where you are in Colorado and in Pennsylvania, um, where my kids are and where Sam's visiting, there's there's uh that you know, and when I talked to them about when I called them because I saw the smoke was literally just covering all of the east coast. And they told me they were having to wear respirators to go do the work. I mean, they're farmers, right? You don't get to take a day off when you're a farmer. You gotta do something. And and it can't be doing any good for the plants and the animals there either, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

So yeah. And I'm gonna put a plug in for masking up again. Like, you know, I know that everybody thinks COVID is over, COVID is not over, COVID numbers are going up again. Yeah and you know, our elders or folks who are struggling with other health uh impairments, this this the quality of our air is not helping you.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

And uh a good fitting, you know, mask is probably should be a new norm for us.

SPEAKER_04 11:17

I mean, sadly it is, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Sadly it should be. But you know, I just think about all that for a lot of people who have like emphysema or you know, chronic asthma. Like, be careful, please. Please be careful.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

If you if you can, possibly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

How many can't?

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Yeah. Yeah. There were um somebody at the camp said one of the teachers at the camp said, your lungs will thank you if you wear a mask.

SPEAKER_04 11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Some of us were wearing masks um during the better worse days. So yeah, I think that's important too. And we don't, you know, we all all of us probably still have masks laying around.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

So, you know, why I mean I've got tons because you know, my kids' health requires me to mask up in generally almost all public places. But, you know, I will also say for those of you who might be listening who find some of these things kind of um, it's a monetary barrier to getting a good mask, you know, check out mask blocks in your community. There's a lot of mutual aid masking communities now that are popping up, and they find people who do donate money to buy really good masks and they will help you fit into one that fits really well and is safe for you. And um just be careful. Like, you know, we don't want you to die. There's six, like if there's 16,000 over the course of this summer, you know, in one country. In one country. And you know, our country is tending towards not like noticing things. Um, but you know, we want you to stay with us until it's your time. So the appropriate time.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yeah. And the mutual aid thing you think that you mentioned, I think is where we're gonna have to go. Like you said, we're not getting any help from our current government. And so we but we can help each other. And so that's again, that's the the mission that I that I've been on, we've been on.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Um, and that I think everybody can, you know, this another PSA, you know, find a way to help your community, find a way maybe to gather masks or to uh or water for if it's really hot, or you know, put up a little sunshade for folks if they're walking down and there's like if you live somewhere where it's not shady, yeah. Just think about our community at large, right? Like, you know, put out water for birds.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Yeah, yeah. All those all the parts of our community. Yeah, give trees, give the trees some water.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

I know. I've been doing that actually.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Yeah. So I mean, it's it's it's you know, it's overwhelming, and it can be hard to even imagine how we're gonna get through this, but that's I think the key. I think that's one of the ways. The clabe.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah, little little baby steps for all of us to be doing little part little bits of parts and pieces. You know, you don't have to do it all.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yeah. So anything else, Sam? Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

And you don't have to, no pressure, babe.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah. I mean give the trees water, but where's the water? You know, when drought or how do you how do you get it? And without maybe going down the the rabbit hole of where's all of our water going? Yeah. And how do we meet that moment? And I think mutual aid's a a good way for that too.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yeah.

unknown 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Also, if you want to get really hippy-dippy, I mean for years and years ago, I used to uh I used to take showers with the kids and I'd just have like a five-gallon bucket and whatever water just splashed in there, you could take it out to the garden, right? So right now we have rain barrels and uh occasionally when I'm very like stressed, but that's not an everyday thing with me, but when I have bandwidth and I'm a little more um upset by watching my kin some flowers or trees struggling, you know, rice gets rinsed and that rice water goes into a bucket, you know. Any kind of extreme like I have friends who come over, they don't drink all their water, it goes into the bucket, and that just gets used, that just gets used to water my plants inside or the plants outside, and it's not that big a deal. And it's just a small piece, like not, you know, in gratitude towards their lives next to mine. I I offered them my a part two.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Yeah, that's a beautiful awareness to uh yeah, never never throw away water, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Um, and when I do, I'm like, I'm like, I'm gonna give it back to the earth as I always like.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

And the gratitude part's so important too, I think saying thank you to all of these plants that are suffering to um and to our beloveds and to our friends and to the water. Um yeah, our planet is um becoming darker, I've been reading, because of the uh lack of uh clouds, you know, the the changing of the clouds and the atmosphere, which is causing things to heat up even more. There's so much about this planet that we just don't understand, you know. And it's way beyond our ever understanding, and it it will do what it has to do. Um but we live in this Goldilocks zone, they call it right. You know, we're we're supposed to be just just right and for us to stay alive, yeah, and we which is a delicate balance. The planet, yeah, it's a very, very delicate balance, and we're skewing that balance by the way we live. So each of us has a job to do. Um reach out to us if you have thoughts or ideas.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

I would I would like to just bring it back around anytime you come up. Also be gentle with yourself and your and your decisions about how you meet these moments. Because it's not necessarily like it's not our choice. We don't necessarily have a choice for how to like survive and meet these moments, and and we can do things like um like save and reuse gray water, dishwater, you know, uh noodle water, whatever it is. Yeah. Um and also that is such a small individual piece that yes can can gather momentum on a group scale, but it's so small in the grand scheme of systemic disrespect, exploitation, and like really wanton damage, which is where the majority of this is going. And so the I think uh especially as things get more severe and we see these things, it can be really, really easy to internalize because we've been fed this narrative that the climate issue, recycling, it's all our responsibility as individuals for not recycling enough, not doing enough, you know, not driving electric, not blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But we're forced into these systems of exploitation degradation in many, many ways. I mean, you can look at how like AI, AI systems, large language model systems that rely on the data centers that are causing a lot of these like accelerations are being forced into every digital systems system that we rely on in our everyday lives. And so like being being gentle, being cognizant of where we do have choices and where we don't. And and um yeah, don't beat yourself up too much. Be aware, make the efforts, you know, yeah, yeah. Work on it because we do have to work on it together.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

But mutual aid, collective efforts is where that's gonna happen, not like you can't consume your way out. You can't like do it all on your own.

SPEAKER_04 19:06

That's right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. That's really important. And it's important to recognize that uh the powers that have the choice to make a difference and could actually make a huge difference aren't aren't interested in in doing so. And part of our work is to make them more interested in doing so in any way we can. So that's our you know, maybe our political work too.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

So um that's hard.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

And yeah, thank you, Sam. It's really important to take care of ourselves and be gentle and forgiving and of ourselves and others. Um, and so yeah, thank you. So, yeah, subscribe, like, come back and uh tell all your friends and reach out on our sub stack. We've got this chat thing with under use. We need you to join us on the chat. So we would love to have that happen. So much love to everybody. Adios next week. Adios.